The mobile revolution is coming to an end: where is the blue ocean of the future?

If we count the history of computers from Sir Babbage's Difference Engine, it has been nearly 200 years, and if we count the history of electronic computers from ENIAC, it has been 70 years.

Looking at it from a ten-year perspective, integrated circuits made IBM successful; when technology advanced further and computers could be made smaller, DEC emerged as the darling of the era; with further technological development, personal computers became possible, and Apple appeared, followed by the rise of PCs from the Wintel alliance, which gave rise to star companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Intel.

When computers became popular in China in the 1990s, everyone was reading "The Road Ahead" written by Bill Gates, and Jobs was already regarded as an outdated pioneer.

Technology continues to develop. In the 21st century, mobile chips gradually matured, starting with MP3, then PMP, and finally smartphones, which set off a new revolution. Apple, Google, and ARM are the trendsetters of this round and have become great companies.

From the release of the iPhone in 2007, which set off a wave of smartphones, to the stagnation of global smartphone and tablet growth in 2014, this wave has basically come to an end.

What we want to know is where will the next wave start? What great companies will be created? Who will be the trend-setter?

Further advancement of technology

Looking back at the history of the IT industry, we find that every new wave has already had the prototype of technology in the previous wave. The application of photoengraving technology on integrated circuits has provided the foundation for the next wave of technology; the development of processors has made the emergence of microprocessors possible; and in the PC wave, embedded processors have developed and emerged.

Therefore, the technology needed for the next wave is already here today. We just need to find it and identify it.

In this wave of mobile intelligence, people have made tremendous progress in technology and the industrial chain.

First of all, wireless communication technology, before the wave began, mobile communications remained in the 2G era, wireless WIFI was still in its infancy, Bluetooth had just appeared, and people were still using infrared.

By 2015, both long-distance high-speed mobile communications and short-distance NFC have made tremendous progress, and being connected to the Internet all the time has become a reality. This is an improvement.

Secondly, there has been progress in microprocessors. Improvements in technology have greatly enhanced the performance of microprocessors, making them capable of performing complex calculations while making chips smaller and more energy-efficient, with better power consumption, allowing them to be used in many places that were previously impossible to apply.

Before the mobile revolution, Australians needed to install a simple PC on the warhead of a homemade cruise missile for navigation, but now all they need is a smartphone.

Sensor chips, Bluetooth transmission chips, microprocessors, and batteries can even be made into Band-Aids.

Another improvement is the performance and cost of various supporting components. Before the mobile revolution, VGA resolution digital cameras were expensive high-tech products, but now, 13 million cameras with excellent image quality are already very cheap. Similar things include batteries, various micro components, various sensors...

The development of these technologies has accumulated technological capital for future breakthroughs. New blue oceans are about to emerge.

New Blue Ocean, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Industry

A robot is a machine that senses through sensors, is controlled by a CPU, and completes actions through electrically driven motors.

Robots are not necessarily humanoid, such as the sweeping robots and window-cleaning robots we see now, but these things can change the traditional lifestyle and improve our quality of life like PCs and smart phones.

In this wave of mobile intelligence, sensors have become cheaper, processor performance has become more powerful, electronic control costs have decreased, and batteries have become cheaper, making it possible for cheap robots to replace human labor.

Nowadays, robots have become very popular in the industrial field. What’s more interesting is that a restaurant has begun using food delivery robots to replace waiters and dancing robots to attract customers.

Before the mobile revolution, robots could not be made so small, nor so cheap. After the mobile revolution, robots can enter ordinary restaurants. With Moore's Law and mass production, such simple-function robots may only cost a few thousand yuan in the future, which is only the salary of a waiter for a month. Human waiters will be replaced on a large scale.

The drones that are now on the rise can actually be regarded as flying robots. They are also dividends brought by the mobile revolution.

The popular wearable devices and smart homes are actually the foundation of informatization. With enough things to collect data, artificial intelligence will have enough information to process, and robots will be able to complete more work.

So, I personally think that the next wave is artificial intelligence and robotics. Of course, Bill Gates also thinks so.

Life in the Next Information Age

From a hardware perspective, according to Moore's Law, there will not be any bottlenecks in future technology. The current problem lies in the level of artificial intelligence and mechanical control.

How robots can perform complex operations and how motors can control machinery beyond the flexibility of human bodies are the technologies that need to be broken through in the future. Once these two technologies are broken through, a new era will come.

In the future, simple manual laborers will no longer be needed. Blue-collar workers, sales clerks, cashiers, and waiters will all be replaced by robots. There will even be no miners, farmers, or toilet cleaners. There will only be mine programmer operators, farmland programmer operators, and programmers who program toilet cleaning machines.

Human job opportunities will be more concentrated on complex labor that is difficult to quantify (such as chefs and hairdressers) and program development.

Productivity will be greatly improved, the development and utilization of natural resources will reach new heights, people will not need to work too long to create wealth, and everyone will benefit. Although there will still be a distinction between the rich and the poor, the threshold will be greatly raised, and the poor in the future may just be because they cannot afford private jets and yachts.

In this process, great companies will emerge, and companies with leading technologies in artificial intelligence and fly-by-wire will gain opportunities. Did Google develop driverless cars because it saw this trend?

The future is bright, and our generation will be fortunate enough to enjoy the next IT era.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.